SB Day 12: Bergen Disembarkation

“Vort Hjerte veed, vort Øye seer,
hvor godt og vakkert Norge er...”
~~ Henrik Wergeland; 1814; Norwegian Poet ~~

(Our heart knows, our eye sees,
How good and beautiful Norway is …)

OK. Yes. I took these words from the Havila Kystruten brochure. It perfectly describes our sentiments about this trip — rain and overcast conditions notwithstanding.

And so we arrived in Bergen … under conditions that were the total opposite of what they were when we embarked m/s Havila Castor on 8 August.

Once the ship was tied up, the deck 5 gangway was deployed. Almost immediately, a stream of people began embarking the ship. It was literally like an invasion … in this case, by an army of cleaning staff coming aboard with vacuum cleaners, buckets, mops, and what have you to deep clean the public spaces. On none of our 65 cruises have we ever seen anything like it!

We’d received instructions, which were repeated in a P/A announcement as we approached the terminal, that disembarkation would be done deck by deck. We were requested to wait for the appropriate announcement. And so we did.

Well, if there were any announcements, we did not hear them … and we were right there in the deck 5 lobby. What ensued was a rather chaotic disembarkation. We waited for the crowd to dissipate. Around 3:00p, we had our ship cards scanned one last time before heading off the ship.

The ground floor of the terminal was packed. At the far end were the northbound passengers waiting to check-in. At the foot of the escalator, where the conveyor belt for checked bags was in operation, were our shipmates, clamoring to get their luggage. I took the carry-on bags and went outside the terminal to wait while Mui waded into the crowd. It took him 15-20 minutes to come out with our two bags.

Having compared the taxi fare from the terminal to the airport against the Havila transfer, we had booked the latter a few days ago. It was easy enough to find the bus, stow our luggage in the cargo compartment, and find seats for the ride. We had a bit of a wait for the rest of the transferees to show up, but we were in no hurry … we had several hours before our flight was scheduled to depart.

And on that note … this segment of our ‘escape the August heat’ trip is now concluded.

I had every intention of blogging the next segment — which will take us from Copenhagen to Helsinki, with stops in Germany, Sweden, and several Baltic countries. I’m afraid I am going to have to postpone that for now.

So, I’ll just say ciao for now and see you all back in Bologna, Italy.Read more